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eidolon
Crit, I don't think Synner667 is saying that all characters that partake in such actions are necessarily "bad". The bigger point throughout the thread has been that if the only aspect of personality a character has is Chaotic Stupid Asshole, then they get really boring, really fast.

If the character is "wired wrong", as you're saying, that doesn't mean we're going to get another single-faceted, no personality, nothing worth being interested in character. In fact, if a person is playing a character from the viewpoint that shadowrunners are wired wrong, that character is likely to be thought out and interesting.

What I was getting at all along, and what I think Synner667 is saying, is that if your characters only ...character... is to be cold and uncaring (aka the player is not putting any effort into the character, then that character doesn't interest us in the slightest. If the character is cold and uncaring on the outside for good, in character reasons, more power to the player. But if the character is just "cold hard icy killer with no emotions" it's damn boring.

It's akin to the style of game that I despise, but which seems to be what a lot of people pull from the rules: take job, do job, get paid, upgrade gear, take job, do job, get paid, upgrade gear... There's nothing making that interesting. Same thing with a character that is just "take job, do job, get paid..." with no more personality than the gun he fires.

I don't necessarily think a connection between player and character was intended, at least not in the way you're taking offense to. But I'll let Synner667 speak to that.

hyzmarca
QUOTE (Critias)
When I say most Shadowrunners are wrong in the head, I mean exactly that. I don't care what happy horseshit is in the novels or what do-gooder Robin Hood fucks are in the source material; look at what Shadowrunners do. Look at how many people they kill. Look at how much they steal, and hurt, and maim. Look at just an average Shadowrun -- sit down at a convention and just listen in on one average gaming table full of one average, pre-generated, Shadowrunner team! -- and rack up the body count. I don't care if the people dying are corporate employees, and neither should you. Breaking into someone's property and killing security guards is morally bankrupt (and anyone that chooses to do that, over and over again, for a living, is similarly lacking in morals).

Look at the risks your average Shadowrunner takes, the lifestyle they lead, and they payment they receive for it...and then tell me how stable, sane, normal, and rational that person is. They get hired by people to do horrible things to other people. They break into businesses, kill (or just beat senseless) anyone in their way, hack computers, steal someone's life work (or upload a virus, or whatever), and then break back out again. That's the default job, right their. The basic datasteal. That's how they pay their bills -- stealing, taking what other people worked hard for, murdering (or at least assaulting) anyone who tries to stop them.

The name for people that do that in real life isn't "Shadowrunner," and if you meet one you won't think he's a carefree hippy hero that's out to stick it to the man.

Even if you want to take a best-case scenario and say they are all Robin Hood types, that still doesn't disprove the "there's something wrong with their hardware" theory. Normal people, sane and rational and stable people, don't live like that. Period. Take the murder out of the equation by insisting this particular group never kills or that every target of theirs "has it coming" (whichever excuse will let you sleep at night), and you're still looking at a group of people that make their living not only by breaking laws and stealing from others, but that face risks and threats that make even the craziest mountain climbing, hang-gliding, extreme sport junkie adrenaline addict look boring and calm by comparison. Even if you decide their aren't cold-hearted killers, they're still insane. Robin Hood (playing along for a minute that he's, in some way, a historical figure rather than a completely made up one) wasn't sane, or normal, or rational in the same way most people of his time were. He wouldn't be famous if he was!

It's a simple statement of fact -- normal, sane, rational people do not become Shadowrunners. There is something fundamentally wrong with anyone, anywhere, in modern society that chooses to make their living as completely outside the laws and social mores as a Shadowrunner does. Some might be sociopathic, some psychopathic, some adrenaline junkies, some self-destructive...but they can't all be in the Shadows against their will, sorry. Regardless of what circumstances might have initially forced even the most noble and well-meaning of people into it, there reaches a point where you make a choice to live the life of a Shadowrunner, and I stand firmly by the idea there is something fundamentally wrong with anyone who makes that choice.


You could easily replace "shadowrunner" in that statement with "soldier" and it would be a whole lot less politically correct. The fact is that there is little difference between a someone who chooses to be a shadowrunner and someone who chooses to be a soldier in his nation's army.

It is a mistake to assume that a shadowrunner acts outside of social morés. Rather, shadowrunners have their own social circles with their own mores. In shadowrunner society, it is most certainly normal to steal things and kill people for money. When they get into that life, these things become normal and acceptable because everybody else is doing it. Peer pressure reinforces these new social mores easily. And don't forget that many shadowrunners grew up SINless in Z-zones running with small-time street gangs. These individuals will have been socialized into this violent thieving existence long before becoming professional shadowrunners.

But, more importantly, the Sixth World is a place where killing people for money is encouraged and respected. Not with your own hands, of course, but killing a million babies a year simply by selling baby formula in Third World countries is a standard business practice. There isn't a megacorp in the world that doesn't kill at least tens of thousands of people annually simply by operating. Life is cheap and treating life as cheap is a standard business practice. Children will be encouraged to eschew empathy in favor of the bottom line from an early age. As they grow up, they'll see that it is socially acceptable to kill large numbers of people as long as you don't do it face-to-face, because it is. From there it is just a hop, a skip, and a jump to killing large numbers of people using firearms.

One of the things that makes the Sixth World gritty is that a callous disregard for life is not anti-social. In fact, social morés have swung to the point that actually caring about the life of another metahuman outside of your immediate family is anti-social.

QUOTE (Sociology A Down-to-Earth Approach 8th Edition by James Henslin)
Devastated by drought, hunger, and starvation, the Ik turned to a form of extreme individualism in which selfishness, emotional numbness, and lack of concern for others reign supreme.  The pursuit of food has become the only good, with society replaced by a passionless, numbed association of individuals. 

Imagine, for a moment, that you were born into the Ik tribe.  After your first three or four years of life, you are pushed out of the hut.  From then on, you are on your own.  You can sleep in the village courtyard or take shelter, such as you can, against the stockade.  With permission, you can sit in the door-way of your parent's house, but you may not lie down or sleep there. 

There is no school.  No church.  Nothing from this point in your life that even comes close to what we call family.  You join a group of children aged 3 to 7. The weakest are soon thinned out, for only the strongest survive.  Later, you join a band of 8- to 12-year olds.  At 12 or 13, you split off by yourself. 

Socialization usually involves learning some aspect of life by what you see going on around you.  But here you see coldness at the center of life.  The men hunt, but game is scarce.  If they get anything, they refuse to bring it back to their families, saying, "Each one of them is out seeing what he can get for him self.  Do you think they will bring any back for me?" 

You also see cruelty at the center of life.  When blind Lo'ono trips and rolls to the bottom of the ravine, the adults laugh as she lies on her back, her arms and legs thrashing feebly.  When Lolim begs his son to let him in, pleading that he is going to die in a few hours, Longoli drives him away.  Lolim dies alone.

The children learn their lesson well: selfishness is good, the survival of the individual paramount.  But the children add a childish glee to the adults' dispassionate coldness.  When blind Lolim took ill, the children would dance and tease him, kneeling in front of him and laughing as he fell.  His grandson would creep up and with a pair of sticks drum a beat on the old man's bald head. 

Then there was Adupa, who managed, for a while, to keep a sense of awe of life.  When Adupa found food, she would hold it in her hand, looking at it with wonder and delight.  As she would raise her hand to her mouth, the other children would jump on her, laughing as they beat her.


One naturally assumes that the values of their own society are universal, but this is not true. Different societies value different things for different reasons. Western Imperialism and the Cultural Genocide that accompanies it has led to some standardization, as Western nations force their own social norms onto less developed civilizations. But, there are still some untainted societies isolated from Western influences and they show, without a doubt, that most social norms that we consider to be self-evident natural moral truths are, in fact, neither self-evident nor natural nor truths.

The Sixth World is usually portrayed as a society that considers material wealth to be more important than human life. Why would people who take their society's primary moré to heart be mentally ill in any way?
Critias
You could replace the word "Shadowrunner" with "soldier" if you wanted to piss off an awful lot of soldiers and pervert what I was saying, yes. But that wouldn't make the statement true -- soldiers do what they do, as a class, not necessarily for themselves, but for others. Soldiers have laws (harsher laws than civilian ones in many cases) that dictate what they can and cannot do. Soldiers have a very strict chain of command that dictate how (and when and where) they operate. Soldiers require (unless laws are being broken by them being ordered into the field, which aren't that soldier's fault) declarations of war before going on the offensive, are supposed to act only against enemy combatants rather than civilians, etc, etc, etc.

Soldiers kill people and break stuff in service of others, to end threats (real or imagined, direct or indirect, it's not up to the soldier) to the nation they serve. Shadowrunners kill people and break stuff, by and large, even as presented in the fluff, because they don't fit in elsewhere and they like nuyen.

There are certainly some, maybe even many, that have put on a uniform and sworn an oath to serve their country, just for the college money or the steady meals or the adrenaline high or for various other reasons. In the same vein, there are (in the imaginary world of Shadowrun) some Shadowrunners who genuinely believe they're doing the right thing by killing security guards and "freeing information," or whatever.

But by and large I don't believe that to be the case. Such characters -- whether psychopathic soldiers or angelic professional criminals -- should be the exception, rather than the rule.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Critias)
You could replace the word "Shadowrunner" with "soldier" if you wanted to piss off an awful lot of soldiers and pervert what I was saying, yes. But that wouldn't make the statement true -- soldiers do what they do, as a class, not necessarily for themselves, but for others. Soldiers have laws (harsher laws than civilian ones in many cases) that dictate what they can and cannot do. Soldiers have a very strict chain of command that dictate how (and when and where) they operate. Soldiers require (unless laws are being broken by them being ordered into the field, which aren't that soldier's fault) declarations of war before going on the offensive, are supposed to act only against enemy combatants rather than civilians, etc, etc, etc.

Soldiers kill people and break stuff in service of others, to end threats (real or imagined, direct or indirect, it's not up to the soldier) to the nation they serve. Shadowrunners kill people and break stuff, by and large, even as presented in the fluff, because they don't fit in elsewhere and they like nuyen.

There are certainly some, maybe even many, that have put on a uniform and sworn an oath to serve their country, just for the college money or the steady meals or the adrenaline high or for various other reasons. In the same vein, there are (in the imaginary world of Shadowrun) some Shadowrunners who genuinely believe they're doing the right thing by killing security guards and "freeing information," or whatever.

But by and large I don't believe that to be the case. Such characters -- whether psychopathic soldiers or angelic professional criminals -- should be the exception, rather than the rule.

Soldiers live in a social group that encourages them to blow stuff up, steal things, and kill people when the people who are paying them tell them to (through the chain of command). Shadowrunners live in a social group that encourages them to blow stuff up, steal things, and kill people when the people who are paying them tell them to (through Johnsons).

While there are many and varied reasons for entering that group in the first place, the fact that that a shadowrunner team and a military special operations unit are extremely similar social units is undeniable. It is a group of people who get paid to do a job that usually involves blowing stuff up, stealing things, and killing other people on the orders of other people. The fact that the social unit that they spend their time in encourages this violent behavior, which would be considered anti-social in any other context, makes it fine and normal.

The concept of service to others simply brings us back to good old-fashion Samurai ethics, which many shadowrunners are depicted to have. The entire concept of the Street Samurai is based around the embracement of a strict warrior ethos.

The point is that shadowrunners are people who live in a unique society and do what is normal in their society, even though this often clashes with the ethics and mores of our society. It doesn't matter why they are present in a social group that encourages and rewards violence. It only matters that they are. Thus, there is nothing anti-social about their use of violence, nor is it a sign of a mental disease. Because it is normal in their social group, because they are socialized to do these things, there is no need for them to be anything but perfectly well-adjusted.

Remember, The Sixth World is one where the old social order has begun to seriously break down. Street gangs are more like tribes than criminal organizations, corporations or more like nations than businesses, and nations are falling apart at the seams. A person who grew up on the streets is likely to have more loyalty to his gang than to his country and doing violence in gang warfare should be socially equivalent to what serving in the military of a nation is today.
A shadowrunner is more of a mercenary, but the lifestyle is a direct application of the same social morés and life-skills that one learns in any combat team.

You are, I believe, looking for the why, the motivation that shadowrunners have for being shadowrunners at a point too high up in their thought processes. They do it because it is what they know. They do it because it is what they can do. Why does a prince become a king? Why does a mafioso's son become a productive member of the family? Because it is what they know. It is what they were taught through experience since they were children. It is the same reason that the children of cops become cops and the children of soldiers because soldiers.

Very few shadowrunners are people who suddenly woke up and said "I'm going to be a shadowrunner today. " They are, mostly, people who grew up in that life, or a similar life, and had nothing else to fall back on. It seems like their only viable choice, even if it isn't. They do it because it is what they know, because it is where they are comfortable and, perversely, where they feel safe. There is security in doing what you know.

Most wouldn't bother thinking about it is terms of higher philosophical ideals very often, but when they do the vast majority choose positive ideals which do justify their actions, often accepting a warrior's code as their highest ideal.
Critias
QUOTE
It doesn't matter why they are present in a social group that encourages and rewards violence. It only matters that they are.

I would say that it matters very much why someone is in a social group that encourages that sort of behavior. Firemen wear masks and use axes and try to find people in buildings that are on fire. So do psychos in horror flicks. That doesn't mean the two are the same.

The reasons people do the things they do are innately, inherently, important when it comes time to make a value judgement on that person and what they're doing. The circumstances absolutely determine the right/wrong of a person's actions. Particularly when those actions, and that person, are being judged by the rules of a different social group (that of the greater, amorphous, society as a whole).

The difference between Robin Hood (again, assuming, for fun's sake, he ever was a single person) and a common bandit wasn't what they did, but why the did it. The "why" behind a person's choice to live in the woods and rob people with a longbow is every bit the reason he's remembered as a folk hero instead of just another thuggish miscreant bandit.

Simply saying "people are Shadowrunners because that's all they know" is simply making an excuse for their aberrant behavior. The fact is they do bad, and they do it (by and large) for selfish reasons. It's no more a legitimate excuse for a fictional Shadowrunner than it is for a real-life gangbanger. Despite the insular, backwards, contrary, sub-section of society they have chosen to take part in, society as a whole (as represented, by popular consent, by the laws that define that society) frowns on their actions. The moral code of the majority is applied, whenever possible, to even the smallest of minorities.

Just because NAMBLA exists doesn't mean pedophiles are okay people. Just because the KKK is around doesn't mean racists are seem as reasonable and intelligent by the rest of society. Or does it? We could set up a poll, I guess, couldn't we? Or is it really necessary?

Simply being a part of a sub-culture doesn't give you a free pass to completely ignore the rules, laws, and mores of the larger culture you likewise belong to.
Scope_47
Little in character quote I had come up with a while back that I thought was relevant...

I do not think that what we all do is evil, or even wrong. Illegal, yes… wrong, no. Every society has two sides that equally rely upon one another. There is the side that everyone pretends is the right and just side – that great machine in which every corporate drone forms a sprocket… and then there is that shadowed side that exists in darkness, that side in which we dwell. Little known to those corporate slaves, but without the dark their great machine could not exist no matter how they tried to save it. It would wither and fall from grace even as they cast themselves upon the gears to preserve what they’ve always held to be ‘true.’ Assassination, espionage, theft, and all other things that we do – that is the dark oil that keeps the machine running. Every death, every life destroyed, every building blown to hell; all of them ultimately serve the needs of society. Is society fragged up? By individual, idealistic standards, sure. But society is just the sum total of individuals - and when the chips are down, individuals are selfish bastards. Like it or not, we’re all serving society, even those of use that would cast it down. And that, Chummer, is why I can put a bullet in this slot's brainpan and sleep well tonight. That's why I've stepped over a lot of bodies - friends and foes - to get where I'm at, and its why I'll step over a lot more until eventually somebody steps over mine. Just the way society works, Omae
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Critias @ Jul 26 2007, 11:26 AM)
QUOTE
It doesn't matter why they are present in a social group that encourages and rewards violence. It only matters that they are.

I would say that it matters very much why someone is in a social group that encourages that sort of behavior. Firemen e rest of society. Or does it? We could set up a poll, I guess,wear masks and use axes and try to find people in buildings that are on fire. So do psychos in horror flicks. That doesn't mean the two are the same.

The reasons people do the things they do are innately, inherently, important when it comes time to make a value judgement on that person and what they're doing. The circumstances absolutely determine the right/wrong of a person's actions. Particularly when those actions, and that person, are being judged by the rules of a different social group (that of the greater, amorphous, society as a whole).

The difference between Robin Hood (again, assuming, for fun's sake, he ever was a single person) and a common bandit wasn't what they did, but why the did it. The "why" behind a person's choice to live in the woods and rob people with a longbow is every bit the reason he's remembered as a folk hero instead of just another thuggish miscreant bandit.

Simply saying "people are Shadowrunners because that's all they know" is simply making an excuse for their aberrant behavior. The fact is they do bad, and they do it (by and large) for selfish reasons. It's no more a legitimate excuse for a fictional Shadowrunner than it is for a real-life gangbanger. Despite the insular, backwards, contrary, sub-section of society they have chosen to take part in, society as a whole (as represented, by popular consent, by the laws that define that society) frowns on their actions. The moral code of the majority is applied, whenever possible, to even the smallest of minorities.

Just because NAMBLA exists doesn't mean pedophiles are okay people. Just because the KKK is around doesn't mean racists are seem as reasonable and intelligent by th couldn't we? Or is it really necessary?

Simply being a part of a sub-culture doesn't give you a free pass to completely ignore the rules, laws, and mores of the larger culture you likewise belong to.

But killing people for money is a mainstream social moré in the Sixth World, it just happens to be obfuscated by layers of paperwork and bureaucracy most of the time. Killing thousands of people to make thousands of nuyen is very much standard corporate practice.

It is a mistake to assume that there is anything illegitimate about the shadowrunner profession. It is made legitimate by the corporations that employ shadowrunners. In fact, there are even laws governing the employment of shadowrunners (The Corporate Interactions Act). Society at large glorifies them on the trideo.

There also seems to be some confusion her over outcomes, methods, intent and motivations. The fire fighter saves people, that is his intent. The axe-murder kills people, that is his intent. The stalking through burning buildings is simply a method. Their motivations, however, are unknown. The firefighter may be a glory hound. The Axe-murder may have come from the future to prevent the destruction of the human race. We don't know.


Robin Hood forcibly redistributed wealth. That was the outcome of his actions. His motivations, we do not know. We cannot know, there are too many conflicting stories. In some, however, anger was his primary motivation.


But, in any case, you are changing the subject. The original question s not whether or not their profession as a Shadowrunner makes them legally or morally justified in the view of society at large, but whether or not it makes them insane.

The fact is that it does not in any way make them insane, just as being a gangbanger is not a mental disease. People join gangs because society in general is unable or unwilling to support them. It is a response to social indifference and persecution, because there is safety and power in numbers, both of which are denied to them by society in general.

It isn't about society at all, it is about opportunity. They do not have an opportunity to join the larger society, but they do have an opportunity to join this "backwards sub-section" of society.
When the moral code is the majority says that you must starve to death on the streets, why should it be adhered to? Why not appeal to a higher law, that of survival?
They aren't part of society at large. The huge social machine out there is agiainst them. It wants to crush them, to destroy them utterly. Why should they obey its rules which ensure their deaths? Why shouldn't they fight for survival as best as they can?

Perfectly normal people fall into these sorts of lifestyles all of the time, simply because there are in a situation where it is easier and safer and better to do so than to not do so. And they might regret it later. But once they're into it getting out is extremely difficult.

I will, also, disagree with the lumping of NAMBLA and the KKK in with street gangs. Street gangs are social organizations that exist to promote the general welfare of their members, in the same way that a State exists to promote the general welfare of its citizens. NAMBLA and the KKK are political groups which exist to promote political ideals ( Man-Boy love and White Power, respectively).
Kagetenshi
Your division between social and political organizations according to intent is absurd. The KKK exists because its members perceive society and their livelihood to be threatened by what it considers outsiders. NAMBLA exists because its members perceive society and their livelihood to be threatened by laws and cultural attitudes that strike against an activity they feel is perfectly natural and reasonable and that is important to them. Street gangs operate at a slightly more local level, but they remain organizations of those who share a certain amount of common interest banding together to protect and promote that interest.

~J
hyzmarca
It is a division between organizations that exist to petition governments and organizations which essentially are governments that I attempt to make.
Kagetenshi
Ok, that distinction I can agree with--working within a system versus working as a system. Still, the lines can blur when an organization that operates as a system has to work with another (think the way states used to work before the US caught the Federal power über alles bug).

~J
pbangarth
Here's some grist for the argument mill. A key issue here is whether killing and generally spreading mayhem for a living is insane or not. One position I read in the thread is that most people don't and wouldn't do that kind of thing. Some posts argue that under the right circumstances/environment, most people would, if nothing else just to survive. My sense of that position is that the environment might be insane, but ordinary sane people just do what is necessary to survive.

Way back in the 60s an American psychologist by the name of Millgram (check any first year Psych text to get full details) devised an experiment to test Germans' responses to authority pressures to do things considered 'evil'. He wanted to try to understand something of what happened in Germany during the Second World War. He tested the system out in America before going over to Germany.

The experiment was ostensibly about testing subjects' memory ability, but the true subjects were the people who were 'hired' to administer the electric shocks (fake) to the fake subject who was an actor. White-lab-coated authority figures with clipboards asked memory testing questions, and when the 'subject' got it wrong, he was shocked, with increasing doses of 'electricity'. The dial ratings went all the way up to 'fatal'. Millgram was dismayed at how many people were able to be ordered to take the dial all the way, and 'electrocute' the actor who was screaming in 'pain' and crying for it to stop. The lab-coats explained it had to be done, the science was necessary, the experiment would be ruined if they stopped part-way through, etc. etc.

Even after modifying the experiment so the true subject (presumably appropriately insulated himself) had to actually hold the hand of the actor down onto the 'shock plate', fully 60% of the true subjects took the actor to the full, fatal dosage.

Millgram didn't bother going to Germany. He had his answers.

Humanity is quite capable of adapting to insane, life-demeaning worlds. Not just in Somalia. Not just in the city core. Right where you live. Right now. You.
Kagetenshi
You get docked points for not also mentioning the Stanford Prison Experiment.

~J
pbangarth
Wasn't I depressing enough?
Kagetenshi
The Milgram Experiment is only half of the picture. It just shows that people will do horrible things when ordered to by people in positions of authority. The Stanford Prison Experiment completes the picture—it shows that people will do horrible things when placed in positions of (certain kinds of) authority. Avoiding putting "bad people" at the top isn't enough—the top naturally tends to rot.

~J
PlatonicPimp
Hyzmarca, you note that the corporate wage slaves kill thousands to make thousands, but obscure it with paperwork. You then say that Shadowrunners do the same, just face to face.

That makes all the difference between the sane and the insane.

The societal norm may indeed be to kill for profit, but a normal human being will have difficulty with that. Our species has a highly adept sense of empathy (it's useful), and it makes hurting others difficult unless we can dehumanize them. A normal human, in order to hurt others, has to convince themselves that the others aren't people, or move the harm out of sight, or both.

A shadowrunner, however, is face to face with their killing. To be able to do that, especially without crippling remorse, is to be beyond the human norm of behavior. A wage slave indirectly kills thousands, and is sane. A runner directly kills a few people, and may not be.
(though I imagine most runners completely dehumanize the corporate targets they hit. They aren't people, they're dupes of the machine. Thusly, they probably remain sane. However, all it would take would be a few human details fortheir victims, and they'll be facing some serious psychosis.)
knasser

Isn't insanity a detachment from reality? A perception of the world that is at variance to what your senses tell you? Isn't it reasonable to say that the runners are saner than the people who can do one thing whilst willfully convincing themself that they are doing another?
Ravor
Well considering that in practice, it's the majority of society that gets to decide what is and isn't "sane" I'd say no. cyber.gif
knasser
QUOTE (Ravor @ Jul 27 2007, 08:31 PM)
Well considering that in practice, it's the majority of society that gets to decide what is and isn't "sane" I'd say no.  cyber.gif


But the majority of society would agree with me on the definition. Therefore the shadowrunner is more sane, even though this outcome is unintended by the rest of society. All your argument does is expose what is general society's hypocracy at best, and is its mass self-delusion (mild insanity) at worst. In between those two poles, is probably just muddled thinking and an inability to follow through the logical consequences of their belief. biggrin.gif

But games aside, everyone can agree that the word 'cat' means an animal that goes woof, if they like. But that doesn't change the fact that there is an animal that goes woof ¹ which is what we're talking about, even if you wish to substitute another word for it. The quality of interpreting the world in accordance with our senses, is a vital part of what we call "sanity." And in that respect, a Shadowrunner is far more sane than the self-deluding, double-thinking rest of the world.

-Khadim.

¹ Yes, I know that cats also go woof if you soak them in parafin and toss matches at them, but that's sick and not germain to this analogy so don't go there.
hyzmarca
You're not going crazy! You're going sane in a crazy world!

Empathy isn't natural. Anyone who has ever dealt with very small children can tell you that empathy is a learned skill. Young kids are pure and untainted self-gratification machines, working solely on principals of reward and punishment.

We learn empathy because it helps us predict the actions and reactions of others. Without it, most social encounters would be like shooting with a blindfold on.
Empathy is not a bar to merciless killing, however. Most normal people, when placed in the correct circumstances, will murder without mercy. This is not due to a lack of empathy or social immaturity at all. The most common justification is, in fact, necessity. That this person's existence was somehow a threat to the killer's livelihood or safety. Fear and desire are common driving emotions. It becomes a value judgment. Do I value my enemy's life more than I value my own? Do I value this witness more than I value my freedom? Do I value my soon-to-be-ex spouse more than I value half of my stuff? Things like that.

Ravor
Well I'd say that although the majority of people would claim to agree with you, in reality their true definition is more akin to "Thinks like I do." Which as you've stated is hypocracy of the worst sort, but thems the breaks.

Also I'd disagree with the very idea that runners don't equally partake in the same sense of hypocracy and self-delusion as everyone else does. How many runners refuse wet-work but don't even bat an eye at mowing down corp-sec in the course of a run? (Even using less-lethal weapons and ammo, people can get seriously wounded and even die in firefights.) How many runners see themselves as being free and fighting the good fight against "Da Man" all the while they are nothing more then whores doing the bidding of the corperate overlords?
PlatonicPimp
We learn everything, but are predisposed to learning certain things. We are naturally empathetic in that we learn empathy very quickly as children. Most kids have the basics down before they can talk. Hell, infants show recognition of human faces as soon as they are capable of demonstrating anything. People who don't learn empathy are atypical, generally garnering an asberger's or autism diagnosis.

Clinically, insane means one of two things (paraphrased): either a behavioral deviation from the norm that causes problems, or fitting the diagnostic criteria of any of the illnesses listed in the DSM (big book of brain issues). It has nothing to do with reason, or with self-delusion. Some self-delusion is healthy, hell, it's required to function.

knasser
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Empathy isn't natural. Anyone who has ever dealt with very small children can tell you that empathy is a learned skill. Young kids are pure and untainted self-gratification machines, working solely on principals of reward and punishment.


How can you know that this is due to not having learnt the skills yet rather than empathy being something that develops for biological reasons as we grow? But I would also qualify your statement. That "self-gratification" includes a driving need for affection and emotional involvement. And as children grow, they learn that they can satisfy this need by in turn satisfying it for others. This exchange is fundamental basis for empathy, and you could call the discovery of this the skill of empathy, but it's a "skill" that is arises logically to solve the problem of all these little units running around with a need for emotional "self-gratification."

The fact that some children and adults appear have a fundamental problem with empathy whilst otherwise intelligent or very intelligent, suggests it has a basis other than something that can be learned, but rather something inherent in the rest of us.

QUOTE (Ravor)
Well I'd say that although the majority of people would claim to agree with you, in reality their true definition is more akin to "Thinks like I do." Which as you've stated is hypocracy of the worst sort, but thems the breaks.

Also I'd disagree with the very idea that runners don't equally partake in the same sense of hypocracy and self-delusion as everyone else does. How many runners refuse wet-work but don't even bat an eye at mowing down corp-sec in the course of a run? (Even using less-lethal weapons and ammo, people can get seriously wounded and even die in firefights.) How many runners see themselves as being free and fighting the good fight against "Da Man" all the while they are nothing more then whores doing the bidding of the corperate overlords?


I'd agree with both parts of that, actually. But I'd comment that the second paragraph has less to do with hypocracy on the runner's parts, than a lack of realistic playing of characters by players. The distinction being that it may not be a good idea to base flavour judgements or arguments about sanity on the inconsistencies of gamers. There are plenty of players who describe their characters as "cold professionals" but play them as screaming five year-olds. Do we then say that we have to redefine the meaning of the word professionalism? wink.gif biggrin.gif

(But I do actually agree with both of your points).
Ravor
Well I've always been a big fan of anything that helped erode the idea that the majority of Runners should be "Ice Cold Pros" as opposed to being proud members of the "Pink Mohawk Crowd" so I'm all for redefining the meaning of professionalism when it comes to Shadowrun. silly.gif (We seriously need a mohawk smily.)
Kagetenshi
knasser: does the fact that some children and adults have a fundamental problem with generating functions whilst otherwise intelligent or very intelligent suggest that it has a basis other than something that can be learned, but rather something inherent in the rest of us?

~J
hyzmarca
QUOTE (knasser @ Jul 27 2007, 06:12 PM)
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Jul 27 2007, 09:41 PM)
Empathy isn't natural. Anyone who has ever dealt with very small children can tell you that empathy is a learned skill. Young kids are pure and untainted self-gratification machines, working solely on principals of reward and punishment.


How can you know that this is due to not having learnt the skills yet rather than empathy being something that develops for biological reasons as we grow?

Easy, deny children all human social interaction from birth and examine the ability to empathize with human beings when they are older.

This has already been done many times, though never systematically with the intent of performing scientific research. Feral children who have had little or no human contact in their early years (0-5) are unable to empathize with humans. Many things that most people believe are instinctual are actually learned through acculturation.
Amala and Kamala, for example, two girls who were literally raised by wolves, were unable to empathize with humans. However, due to their early indoctrination into wolf culture, they exhibited many wolf-like behaviors and tendencies that are popularly thought to be instinctual and they were certainly able to empathize with other members of their pack (idiotic child welfare advocates took them from their adopted family without cause, which proved to be disastrous for them).


If you throw a newborn baby into a wolf's den then that baby will learn how to be a wolf as it grows up (or be eaten, but that's unlikely). It will be enculturated by wolves and it will be as any other member of wolf society is.

Tarzan doesn't really happen. There is no noble element to the human soul or intellect that shines through across all cultures. Human culture is simply more complex than other animal cultures and if it human is raised in a non-human culture then it will behave as any other member of that culture would, within normal variance, of course.

The reason that empathy eludes some intelligent people is that empathy and intelligence are both learned but they are both learned differently and, more importantly, they both must be learned early. The first five years of life are the most important when it comes to learning empathy is really a very difficult thing to learn. People learn most easily in the first five years. If you are given puzzles and storybooks and math problems and building blocks to play with then you will develop skills that we associate with intelligence. And if you don't have sufficient human interaction then you won't develop basic human empathy. And once that five year grade period has passed, it takes supreme effort to build those foundations.

More importantly, because empathy is a skill it can be voluntarily turned off. You can choose not to empathize with someone. Some people can do this more easily than others can, but everyone can do it to some extent. You don't have to fully empathize with every stranger that you meet.
Sterling
QUOTE (Begby)
Throw in a small child crying by the eviscerated corpse of it's mother on the sidewalk as people walk by just once, and you won't have your players thinking it's less than punk anything.


In the example above, you can go any step further by having the crying child looking for his or her mother, and right around the corner in the alley, just out of sight, the devil rats/ghouls/vampires/whatever are feeding on her. The passers-by don't even stop, they step around the child, even as a few of the things chewing on the mother eye the child as a yummy dessert.

As the runners walk down the street at night, they're passed by two joygirls. Not more than five minutes later, the runners hear a bloodcurdling scream, then the sounds of a light pistol firing, then a second scream. You then describe the low, anguished sobs and shrieks the joygirls make as they are eaten alive by ghouls.

But that's either grit or horror, and your take on it is yours.

My best example of a character who's not a 'stone cold pro' or 'purple mohawk club member' started out as a runner when his corp dumped him. He had some skill and knew which end of a pistol you pointed at trouble, so he stepped into the Shadows. He had morals, he had ethics. And all he wanted was enough money to get out of the gray, dismal existence that was 'wake up, find a job, do the job, replace needed tools to do the job, get drunk, bank meager savings, get drunk, pass out, rinse, repeat.' He wasn't going to do this forever, just long enough to make enough money to set himself up in the life he deserved (think permanent middle lifestyle).

But as time went on, life became a slippery slope. Sure, he wouldn't kill in cold blood, but those guards were shooting to kill! Kill or be killed was the question, and his death wasn't an acceptable answer. So datasteals led to extractions, extractions led to sabotage and the slide continued. And as he slowly sank into the 'I'll do A to survive, but not B... okay, I can do A and B, bu not C... well, C's also fine, but never D...' mentality, he was also descending into the morass of 'well, maybe this upgrade will give me a better edge'. So not only was he slowly losing the very ideals that defined him, but his humanity was being replaced by metal to match the corrosion of his soul. He ended up being a hardcore runner who would do anything (still resisted wetwork, but he'd drop someone in a heartbeat if he felt they 'deserved to die'... but he wasn't an assassin, right?) and was pretty competent, well-versed in surviving the streets, with enough cyberware to make him a serious threat... and he was completely consumed by the Shadows.

That's Shadowrun to me. Your characters have lofty goals and raw naivete, but as they learn and grow (and hopefully survive) they trade in their hopes and dreams in order to survive in an environment that uses them harshly. A shadowrunner is a disposable lighter, when it's no longer useful it's tossed aside without a thought. They fight tooth and nail to work their way up the Shadow heirarchy to be able to undertake jobs with higher pay (and higher danger) because they don't want to end up a target; they can't afford to be seen as weak or they'll be pulled down and left hopeless and adrift like the chip-addled squatters they step over on the way to a meet. Your only goal is to elevate yourself to be prey to the fewest number of groups out there. Too weak? you're marginalized, a victim.. you'll be robbed, devoured, pimped out, turned into spare parts, or have your brains melted with drugs or chips. Claw your way to the top and set yourself up in the lap of luxury, and now you only have to worry about the people under you, runners eyeing you as the big prize, or the corps who will always be top dog. You can't possibly win, but you also can't ever consider losing. You're going to die, that's a given. But the trick is to live as well and as long as you can in the meantime.
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